Quote of the Day/Week-Slash

Today's quote of the day is from former Guns N Roses and current Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash, who was one of the subject of photographer Timothy Greenfield-Saunders' photos in "The Black List" exhibit which ran at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, until April 22nd.

Yes, we are perhaps the first blog to quote Dan Quayle and Slash within 15 minutes in the history of the blogosphere!

Slash, 46,  is actually half-black and half-white. We knew that, but we were surprised to learn on Wikipedia that 'this All-American boy' was actually born and raised in England! Slash's mom Ola Hudson (1946-2009), an African-American, was a costume designer for the likes of David Bowie. Slash has both American and British citizenship. Perhaps, both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will covet his endorsement (forgive the political humor; we sense Romney isn't laughing, but then again we've never met the man).

Hmmmm....it just dawned us that if he got knighted by Queen Elizabeth, he would be 'Sir Slash.' 

"Rolling Stone" ranked Slash as the 65th greatest guitar player of all time on a "100 Greatest Guitar Players of All-Time List." We are 99.9-percent certain that Keith Richards made the list as well.

An alleged dispute with Axl Rose, the lead singer of "GNR" apparently lead to Slash's exit from the band and the subsequent formation of Velvet Revolver.

Interestingly enough, Slash has just released his second solo album "Apocalyptic Love" which is assuredly flying off the record shelves in Boise, Idaho; here is Slash's quote:

"I still party all the time and hang out with everyone who drinks, but I don't personally, and don't really have the desire to get blitzed any more."

http://www.washington.org

http://www.slashonline.com

http://www.twitter.com/#/slash

http://www.gunsnroses.com

Casulaties of Modern Technology (9 of 12)_ The Compact Disc

Yes, we are using an image of a compact disc of REO Speedwagon as a bit of an in-joke, as it is a band that one often hears one annoying adult contemporary radio stations, such as WASH-FM (97.1, Washington DC).

The compact disc, which is refered to as the cd, is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was first developed in labs in Belgium and The Netherlands in 1979, according to Wikipedia, and the cd became commercially available in 1982.

The first cd that we personally purchased was "Storm Front" by Billy Joel in 1989; it's the one with "We Didn't Start the Fire," which seemed like such a great song at the time.

As "Rolling Stone" writer Rob Sheffield has noted in his memoirs about his youth and how the pop music of the time ('80s and '90s) affected his life, he noted that the cd was instrumental in allowing music artists to store more music in one unit. Bands, ranging from The Cure to Guns N Roses, have taken advantage of this.

There are also enhanced cds, such as "Naked" (Talking Heads, 1988), which have music videos stored on them in addition to music from the recording studio.

According to a recent "Rolling Stone" article (not written by Sheffield) and the public radio music show "Sound Opinions," sales of cds have been plummeting. But, many are still made in spite of more modern gizmos because older artists like Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Bob Dylan rely on cd sales for their older customers whereas young artists like Lady Gaga rely on going directly to I-Tunes and I-Pads, and other gadgets that were the brainchild of the late Steve Jobs.

However, vinyl sales have improved. In fac, 2011 was a banner year for vinyl record sales as 3.9 million records were sold. This was the first in sales in the product since 1979.

And, many though music stores have been disapperaring at an alarming rate, the remaning succesful ones, such as CD Alley in Chapel Hill, Hill, and Wuxutry Records in Athens, Ga. (which also has a store in Atlanta) have relied on both the cd and the record to get music to their customers.